ReinforcementA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWnever heard of, about whom you know nothing.
Th e fact that information about you has been
gathered and stored is kept secret from you, and
you will not know how that information is to be
used or for what purpose.
Sections 21 to 25 of the Act grant the state
powers to gather data from Internet traffic
where the following might be considered to
be at risk: national security, the detecting or
preventing of crime, matters of disorder, traffi c
which may be deemed to be in the interests of
the UK’s economic well-being, public safety,
public health, the levying/collecting of taxes, and
for any purposes the Secretary of State specifi es,
subject to parliamentary approval.
Th e initial question, widely asked, has been,
will RIPA succeed in its stated aim of catching
terrorists and criminals? Equal concern has
been expressed about the widespread practice
of subjecting individuals and families to surveil-
lance by local government. Th e Conservative-
Liberal Democrat coalition government elected
in May 2010 announced its intention of requir-
ing local authorities to seek the permission of
magistrates to conduct covert electronic or
manual surveillance.
RIPA remains a target of human rights
groups in the UK such as Big Brother Watch
and Spy Blog (‘Watching them, watching us’),
the Convention on Modern Liberty and the
website of campaigning journalist Henry Porter
(Henry Porter on Liberty). See usa – patriot
act, 2001. See also topic guide under media:
freedom, censorship.
▶Rosemary Bechlor, The Convention on Modern
Liberty: Th e British Debate on Fundamental Rights
and Freedoms (Imprint Academic, 2010).
Regulatory favours In an age when multina-
tional corporations have acquired local, national
and global voice by investing in media, it comes
as no surprise to observe them using that voice
to promote corporate interests, to employ those
media to pressurize government to grant them
favours. Jeremy Tunstall and Michael Parker in
Media Moguls (Routledge, 1991) use the term
regulatory favours that governments cede to
big media-owning companies in return for a
‘good press’. Th ese favours principally constitute
the abolition or waiving of media regulations
that might hinder expansionist interests. See
conglomerates; global media system: the
main players; murdoch effect; politics of
accommodation (in the media); privatiza-
tion; strategic bargaining. See also topic
guide under media: politics & economics.
Reinforcement Th ere has been much argumentmedia texts. Refl exivity makes critical use of
narratives, personal and collective, through
which sense is forged out of experience. See
self-identity.
Refutation The employment of counter-
arguments, evidence and proof to dispute the
arguments of another person. Strictly speaking,
to disprove allegations.
Register Term describing the compass of a
voice or instrument, the range of sound-tones
produced in a particular manner. Th e soprano
and the bass sing in different registers. The
word also describes the structures of language
used in varying social contexts: its levels of
vocabulary, sentence construction, tones and
infl exions. Th us the register adopted by an infant
school teacher in his/her class will diff er from
the register selected for the staff room, just as
a scientist will adjust his/her register between
conversations held with scientifi c colleagues and
with casual acquaintances in the local pub. In
printing, register refers to the exact adjustment
of position, as of colours in a picture, or letter-
press on opposite sides of the page.
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
(RIPA) (UK), 2000 One of the most far-reaching
pieces of government surveillance legislation,
RIPA extends blanket powers of interception on
telephone and internet traffi c not only to
the police and security agencies such as MI5, but
also to a broad spectrum of government depart-
ments as well as local government. In 2002 what
had initially been claimed to be a means of track-
ing online crime was suddenly opened out to be
what a UK Guardian leader, ‘British Liberty RIP’
(11 June 2002), called ‘a mockery of the right to
privacy that the Human Rights Act is supposed
to protect’. RIPA was seen to ‘have profound civil
liberty implications’.
The Act opens up all telephone messages
and e-mails to offi cial scrutiny; in addition it
empowers employers to monitor the e-mail
exchanges of their employees. It obliges Internet
service providers (ISPs) to install ‘black boxes’
which record all server traffi c. It makes illegal
any encryption that might deny access by the
authorities. Refusal on the part of individuals or
groups to declare keys to encryption is punish-
able by up to two years’ imprisonment. Unwit-
tingly, ISPs become the snouts of government
and its agencies.
Th e ‘spy-in-the-wire’ has access to who you
talk to, when, what you talk about and where you
have been talking from. It can accumulate vast
amounts of information about you which will
be made available to people you have never met,